RJ's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

RJ stepped through the gate, ready to ask where a dead man went to make music. He had crossed eleven years inside one song and carried the weight of every note he never fixed. The bridge still felt wrong to him. He came here to finish it. Then he heard it. His melody, drifting from somewhere past the fence line. Slow, careful, played on a blue acoustic propped against a wooden platform. Not his recording. Someone playing it live. RJ stopped walking. On a crate near the platform sat a thin square sleeve, sealed in plastic, his initials stamped across the front. An album he never made. A man with long brown hair and a faded band shirt set the guitar down and looked up. "You're late," Christopher said. "The bridge resolves too fast. I've been waiting to ask you why."